Yesterday was brutal.

I started this post at work yesterday, between phone calls and incoming faxes.

You know how I always say that it’s better to have a headache than to be a headache? I may have changed my mind. It feels like there is an elephant sitting between my right nostril and my right eye. An elephant with the hiccups. An increasingly unhappy elephant who is contemplating the example of Lizzie Borden while casting about for the nearest axe.

I am most devoutly hopeful that the elephant’s name is not “Sinus Infection”.

I am probably allergic to this team-building T-shirt. I am definitely not allergic to the concept of team-building. I am rather fond of my team, in fact of all the teams that I am on: the admin team, the support staff team, the Relief Society team, the women of a certain age team, the mom team, the Gram team, the type like the wind team, the wearer of ridiculous T-shirts so as not to incur the wrath of the person who bought it team.

Later in the afternoon, maybe around 3:00, it dawned on me that I was feeling significantly better. [Dad would have laughed and called it Sundown Fever.] And I decided that maybe the elephant behind my face might be named “Resentment”. Yes, I woke up with significant congestion; yes, it got worse during the day. I have been speaking with my 1-900 voice for the past several days, the one that makes plaintiff lawyers become civil [a little lawyerly pun there; we practice civil law, and some plaintiff attorneys forget that]. But I really, really did not want to be up there answering the phone, and there was nobody else to do it. I felt stuporous and slow for most of the day.

I was thinking at one point that I would need to call the elders to tell them there would be no drive-by fooding tonight, and call my counselors to ask them to handle Relief Society tomorrow, and call the bishop to tell him I would be MIA. And just stay in my jammies all weekend and drink chicken stock and hot lemonade and try to get myself properly oxygenated. I was even thinking of canceling dinner with Brother Sushi last night. That’s how bad I felt. But we were both in the mood for spicy food [and I thought it would help me feel better], so I picked him up and we went to Nelda’s. He tried a different combo; it looked nice, but I couldn’t smell it. I tweaked my usual enchilada plate, going for two rather than three [so I could have dessert] and having them substitute salsa verde for the crema sauce on my spinach enchilada. I always have a sour cream chicken enchilada; theirs are superb.

The first bite of salsa verde just about took the roof off my mouth, but after a couple more bites everything went pleasantly numb and tingly. And I was able to taste most of my dinner, and dessert? Oh. Amazing.

I am a flan fan. This was, bar none, the best I have ever tasted. I think they used pure cream to make it, and it took me at least half an hour to eat it, listening to Brother Sushi’s stories [always as good as the food] and nodding and smiling. He said he could watch the relaxation slide down my face as I ate. Dinner de-stressed me from the hairline to about my eyes. That first bite of flan dropped the line about an inch. And I could feel it from within.

I was so chilled when I dropped him off that I didn’t have the oomph to get out of the car and hug him goodnight. So I popped my hand out the window, and we bumped fists. I just b-a-r-e-l-y made it home awake. Came in and put on my jammies and skimmed my inbox and was in bed by 10:00.

Life is looking a lot better this morning. I woke a hair before 5:00, and I can mostly breathe. I think a mug of broth is called for, and I think horseradish potatoes are not out of the question for later today. I just want things I can taste.

I have already watched Shall We Dance and put two inches, the first bit of waist shaping, and another buttonhole on the sweater fronts. I have eaten a clementine, and I think I will make a pan of pigs in blankets while it’s still relatively cool outside. I can always have a bowl of cereal for lunch, or I can pick up a bowl of orange chicken and an egg roll with Chinese mustard if I go out to get more paint-stirring sticks and a couple of organizing boxes.

I am toying with the idea of painting half the hall today, all the bits that are visible from the living room and the wall with the bathroom door in it. And then next weekend, or maybe tomorrow after church, I could paint the bookcase wall.

I got up on the bed yesterday before work and tightened the light bulbs in the ceiling fan. I was down to one that functioned consistently; the others had loosened enough that they might as well not have been there. Now my room is so bright that I see a few spots I missed while painting last month.

I am incredibly hungry now and I want to knit. Decisions, decisions.